my darling, it was only a dream
by teabizarre
Summary: John has a secret that Sherlock is willing to keep. dark!John, dark!Sherlock, pining!Sherlock. Peripherally inspired by "The Robber Bridegroom" by the brothers Grimm. Written for Let's Write Sherlock's second challenge.


i.

The serial killer favours women coming home from dates or outings. It only takes two murders for the media to label him 'Prince Charming'. The crime scenes are pristine. His handiwork is perfect. The cuts are so precise his hands could not have trembled at all.

ii.

It takes three murders for me to become suspicious, and a fourth to confirm. We are at the dump site. The moon is xanthic and unperturbed in the sky, rounded and vivid. The victim has only been dead for four hours. This is the freshest corpse they have found so far. _The killer_, Lestrade says, _is getting cocky_.

_Wrong_, I think, and lean closer to the body. _These cuts—John, these cuts_. I look at him. He is standing two paces away from the body, arms folded and frowning. He is as steady as always, but I can see his heart beat against his shirt collar.

Sentiment?

No (his eyes are too hard).

Irritation?

No (he hasn't glared at anyone in thirteen minutes. Fourteen).

Excitement?

No (no more than usual).

Arousal?

Hard to tell. Dilated pupils/minimal lighting.

_John_ I repeat, more earnestly. I am breathless (all of the above). _These excisions are perfect_.

His arms falter around his chest in surprise. The moonlight breaks into his expression: it cuts along the lines in his face, runs fingertips against the shadow between his lips, brushes against the lockets of his eyes.

Now I identify his hesitation, because I share it. It's euphoria.

iii.

He suspects that I do, and does not venture out for two months. But it works at him, gnaws at his constraint. His tea is abandoned as he paces the flat. His route to work varies, falters, stops altogether for two weeks; resumes when Mrs Hudson remarks on his mood. He force-smiles at her kind-hearted enquiries. Considers her, dismisses it. Cries himself to sleep three times. Wakes up screaming twice.

_It's only a dream _I lie to him. He is still half-asleep. He hiccups, nods, shivers. Believes me.

iv.

I do not like it when John is sad. When his moods dissect my own. I wait for him, wait for the inevitable falsehood steeped for one and a half minutes in truth. I have catalogued all his previous versions, since. An extra shift at the clinic (first murder). Pub quiz with Stamford (second). New James Bond movie (third). Rugby with Bill (fourth).

_I'm going to St Barts_, I tell him, and he swallows helplessly without looking up from his laptop. It takes him forty minutes to follow my absence from the flat.

v.

The fifth victim is found at the kill site (her flat), not a dump site. Only one kill site had been identified prior to this, its evidence corrupted by rain and time. But this kill site is in perfect condition. This kill site is a gift.

I look at the body on its temporary plinth, at the greasy-looking vivisection caressing the major organs, the carefully undisturbed pools of blood. I've seen these hands at work before: stitching together my split skin after an altercation with a suspect, quietly replacing yet another bottle of spoiled milk, scrubbing mould samples from the sink, curving around endless cups of tea, gripping a gun with unwavering commitment.

_Illegible handwriting_, I think, and _dark blue eyes_, and _terse, tense smiles_, and _shampoo that smells like kiwi fruit_.

John watches as I watch. His nervousness is visible only because any ripple is exaggerated on a calm lake.

_Amazing_ I tell him. _Amazing_.

vi.

With the sixth victim he makes a mistake. I am distraught, enraged. I wash through our flat like a rip tide. He is quiet, small, flotsam in the wake. His shoulders shake as he confesses, hunched in his chair, to the skull, and the couch, and the newspaper rumpled on the coffee table.

I abandon my violin to shake his shoulders. _You did this on purpose!_

_Yes. Yes._

I consider his thudding heart and his soul-wrenching regret. I consider how soft his hair feels against the very tips of my fingers, and how he stills at my touch.

_Sherlock-_

_It's only a dream._ I take up my violin again.


End file.
